Madonie Delights and Gastronomy Experience from Palermo

Madonie Delights: Cheese Show Cooking, Castelbuono and Biblical Manna with locals

Today meet the driver and departure for the Madonie Mountains to immerse yourself into Sicilian countryside and local traditions.

Upon arrival transfer in a local Dairy Farm where will take place the cheese production starting from cooking the milk to transforming it into different types of cheeses characterized by differences in maturation.

At the end enjoy eating the fresh Ricotta Cheese in combo with other local cheeses, bread and more

Then a short drive takes us to Castelbuono, a charming small medieval village with a delightful, still well preserved old town that captivates you from the very first moment. The town develops around the castle of Ventimiglia, near a Byzantine hamlet called Ypsigro.

Walking through its narrow streets, is like entering another dimension, it’s like seeing a parade of knights and beautiful ladies wearing rustling brocade clothes and complicated hairstyles. Castelbuono is, therefore, a little enchanted jewel and, as in any respectable fairy tale, there must be a castle and here’s an impressive one! Stop in a local small pastry shop in the heart of the village. This special shop has become an Italian-sicilian excellence known all over the world with its enormous offer of Panettone cooked using the best local ingredients, from pistachio to oranges, passing from Modica chocolate to almonds and nuts.

In the Madonie Park, Manna falls from Ash Trees: from Exodus to Easter – The Manna, the bread of life.

This afternoon meet our Manna Expert Team at his own land and you will see how traditions are not only a part of the past but are still a lifestyle. You will discover with him the traditional cultures, medical herbals, edible plants and a demonstration of the production of ash’s Manna.

Manna is the solidified sugary sap that flows from incisions made on the trunk and main branches of several species of the genus Fraxinus in the summertime. Manna is a sugary exudate consisting mainly of mannite, organic acids, water, glucose, fructose, mucilage, resins and nitrogen compounds. 

The Manna, considered “The nectar of the Gods”, is the white gold of the Madonie. It is a crystallized and sugary sap that is extracted from the spring season from the Ash tree, today Slow Food Presidium. This ash sap, with many properties, is collected exclusively in the countrysides of Castelbuono. 

Later we drive back to Palermo.